 which is the emergency board broadband action plan. So we are back and I had a discussion, email, phone message with chair Brighlin last week. His committee has already started working on a committee bill for some of those pole attachment licensure issues that were in the plan. He thought we were working on one and I said no, we weren't. So if he wanted to take the lead and send it to us, they have pretty much one area of jurisdiction and we're starting to get hit with our many areas of jurisdiction. So that's just an update on some of the testimony we took on Tuesday. At that time the independent providers had asked for a chance to talk with us. We didn't have time on Tuesday. So they're here today and we've got Rajanishi from Waitsfield Champlain Valley telephone and we're going to move through the list and gentlemen, the floor is yours. We also have coming up this afternoon an amendment to 301 which is the 248A, the notification to E911 bill. We do have an amendment and perhaps Senator Brock, you can explain the amendment so if it impacts any of these gentlemen, they would have the opportunity to testify if they had concerns. Sure, I had, we had asked, I think Senator Hooker, and I'm not sure if she's on at this point, since she was the introducer of the amendment, that she could explain what it is that they're trying to accomplish with the amendment. We wrote her in but I don't, I think she is coming in for the discussion at 415. Okay, well in any case what their amendment does, it relates to the section of the bill that deals with power failures of network equipment and what we were trying to do in the bill that we passed last year is to make sure that we were aware or we had a process in place so that the E911 board in particular was aware where there were power failures that were substantive that caused a lack of connectivity to E911 that somebody was tracking it not with tremendous precision but to give us an idea of how big a problem we had and that was the sole purpose of it to get a sense of how big the problem was so that in going forward we could try to figure out solutions that made sense. That's what the underlying bill was designed to do and what we was that our notification the notification would come to us if there were 25 or more customers impacted for half an hour or more and so a set of reporting requirements were established and by rule by the E911 board to do it. As we looked at the legislation though it was brought to our attention that we were perhaps inadvertently including some folks in it based on how we dealt with system backup and the notion there was that the technically and literally the way it reads what we did before is that if there was a problem with the backup system even to the customer's home where they were responsible for the battery we wanted reporting for that and that was not what our intent was to go to that level and so this the changes that we made in 301 were designed to do that. Senator Hooker has some constituents in Shrewsbury and if the committee remembers last year we had a lot of testimony from folks in Shrewsbury who found themselves without telephone coverage for somewhere in the vicinity of two weeks and they had some backup systems connected to their own homes that were inside the homes that they were in fact unaware of and were unaware of how to get a battery to fix them. What our what Senator Hooker's amendment does to the language that we had relative to this in 201 and this is this is from Maria Royals comments it's designed to make a provider responsible for a power failure or the failure of a backup battery at a consumer's home. There is an expectation that the provider will notice and report the backup battery inside the consumer's home fails or indeed at the network interface on the exterior of the home fails. Now Maria goes on to say that what she understands both from Dr. Guite has said is that as well as from other carriers that this is not possible for example a homeowner might remove the battery disconnect the power shut off a circuit breaker etc and she doesn't believe that this would be visible. Now in the past day I've spoken to Michelle Guite I've spoken to his director of engineering I've spoken to a number of people including some other carriers and what he's talking about the Shrewsbury customer is the network interface that sits on the outside of the house that is the piece of technology as I understand it that takes the signal from the fiber and converts it to something that can be that can be dealt with electrically within within the house and that there also is typically a battery backup that is inside the house the battery under the control of the homeowner what I had about an hour discussion with the consumer and Shrewsbury this morning and the essence of it is he wants to know that if there is a failure of that network interface device for there to be noticed provided to the E-911 board as in our underlying law and talking with the the provider VTEL and this seems to be confirmed by other providers that I've spoken with is that there is visibility to the provider if the network interface is not operating however there is no mechanism in which they regularly and continuously monitored it to aggregate the kind of statistics that we're looking for although VTEL indicates that it's working on trying to create that so that's kind of a long-winded explanation of what they're trying to do and point of fact as I read the amendment though it seems to me that we largely have covered that in our underlying bill because what this says is if there is a something that goes for 25 customers or more where there's an outage in which E-911 connectivity is not there and it belongs exclusively it is on equipment owned by the provider that is exclusively controlled that's important exclusively controlled by the provider they have an obligation to report if it's not exclusively controlled that they do not and that was our intent as I understand okay but Randy 301 excluded the national cable right the national providers it did not exclude the national well it there was another section I think it's section three that said that we would allow those companies that report to the FCC to report what they report to the FCC which is not as granular as what we in Vermont are requiring and we did that because we found that the the providers the Comcasts of the world did not have a system that was set up to do that that it would be costly to create such a system and we knew that California is the process of coming up with a more granular standard and our goal in doing this particular amendment is to say rather than create something that is the only one in the country that does this that's unique to Vermont and that's costly and that likely will result in some costs possibly being passed on to Vermont consumers we should wait for California to do what it does so that we don't create an effect of one off because if for no other reason our goal in getting this information is not to use it as a basis for specific action but to try to give us an idea of how big a problem we have not to to come up with granular solutions and it certainly was not to look at a consumer by consumer basis individually to indicate when their system was down so as to be able to report something that was not our intent right so I think if the reason I wanted to just flag this today is because the amendment was brought to us yesterday and we put it on for discussion the bill is on the floor probably come up tomorrow it probably will own you know if it's going to impact anyone because the big national providers like Comcast and Consolidated are kind of I'm not sure about Consolidated they have and whoever's under FCC reporting rules is off the hook I'm not sure about the independence like the Waitsfield Champlain Valley so I just wanted a heads up on this I've told the proposer of the amendment it might be more complicated than we have time to deal with given our rather strange floor system right now and this bill does still have to go to the house so if they want to you know there's another option but I wanted to let everyone know so no one can say but I was there and no one said anything to me this has just come up and we don't have our usual mechanisms for letting everyone know and I don't think most of you have your usual lobbyists in the building checking in with us on hourly schedule so I just wanted to make sure people knew that there were proposals out there one thing that's clear though is that the bill that's on the floor right now we eliminate some of the requirement for providers to be responsible for backup it's designed to clarify that to eliminate the responsibility that carriers have for doing something that they can't do to change houses yeah you can't change the battery in my kitchen so we will start with Mr. Nishi haven't seen you in a while so welcome good afternoon thank you for having me here today can you hear me okay yes yes yeah for the record I'm Roger Nishi and I'm with Watesfield and Champlain Valley Telecom and today I'm here on behalf of Watesfield and Champlain Valley Telecom as well as the independent local exchange carriers of Vermont thank you Franklin Telephone Company, OTT, Shoram Telephone, Topsham Telephone Company, TD telecom which includes Northfield, Letmore and Perkinsville and also VTEL we all would like to express our gratitude to the DPS in coming up with this this plan so so quickly it provides a roadmap to to get broadband to many people much quicker and if funded properly it could get brought the hundred over a hundred to everyone in the state it always come and as we always say at our company it takes time and money and if there if there would have been the money pots of money five years ago we'd be five five years ahead of where we are now so that being said let let me give a little bit of background about the companies we've been around a long time most of us for well over 100 years providing voice and and more recently data and some of us do have cable TV we're actually regulated as eligible telecommunications carriers and the state looks at our services our quality of service and and our voice quality and and we're still regulated in terms of of access to 911 we're also carriers of last resort and what what I mean by that is we build to everyone in the areas we serve we don't drop into an area and pick off the high volume high revenue businesses we serve and we don't we don't just pick off highly populated areas we serve the areas within the the territories that we we live and work and we build to the towns but we also build out to the middle of nowhere where there would be people with that would say that it probably isn't even economically feasible to build there but we build there because it's what we do and we're carriers last resort so that all being said we started when there was no service in the areas 100 years ago so in some ways you could say hey you're sort of like the CUDs but but 100 years ago and so with that let me let me talk a little bit about the emergency broadband action plan why I'm actually here today we were really only briefly mentioned in the plan and I as we read it we said hey what about us we were some of the first companies to really bring 100% broadband to the state albeit it was really slow but everyone had broadband and over time we upgraded our networks we continued to upgrade our networks we we installed the the much maligned DSL what everyone says we can't have anymore but let me say that by investing into DSL over the past 10 years we got our bank for the buck all customers had broadband and if we wouldn't have done that we had had many customers with very very slow speeds and several if it would have been fiber that we were investing on people that were very fortunate to have fiber and people very unfortunate to have almost no speed whatsoever so it was the right decision at the time but we continued to evolve and in that evolve it meant it's fiber but let me talk a little bit about about why I'm here we want to be part of the solution we are part of the solution by working with us it's really the most it's the quickest and most efficient way to get broadband infrastructure out there immediately without duplicating infrastructure we won't be doing over bills we'll be building on our networks and many of us are ready to start right now we can move our projects around to get the broadband to those that don't have it we have the experience and the track record in building and maintaining networks and as I've said we continue to upgrade our networks over time to continue to improve many people say well what are the iLex doing about fiber we we invest fiber each and every year whether it's mainline or to our end users each and every one of our remotes the 80 or so that we have in our company they are they are all fiber fed so there is fiber in the network now it's just continuing to push the fiber deeper into our networks and and also hooking up the customers a few other things by working with the iLex 100% of the money that we receive is going to be going into the building and the networks it's not going to go into planning it's not going to go into administrative it's not going to go into writing business plan it is going into the network so it's money well spent and in doing so we'll get we'll continue to get our customers the joint use network the network that provides voice and also provides the data that everyone wants and needs in in this current time what what's the answer of course we we want it's fiber it's it's the answer to mean customers needs now and in the future and even though it costs more than copper it's it's a great investment for the long term we do not want to have to go back five years from now and being and taking out some technology and putting in fiber let's get it in now let's spend the money once that's let's just stop all the incremental steps let's get to the answer we want and that's what the state has said when when they came up with the goal of 100 over 100 one other thing on this is building broadband it takes time time if you say go today you have $50 million weight's field to spend in your area it'll take us five years to spend that and get the services out to the to the customers so or probably even more so it's something to where it's really imperative that we start as soon as possible and and and get it going because we need to secure our contractors for those that haven't we have and we need to make sure our supply chain is working and we're getting all all of the equipment and and materials that we need to do build networks so as I said building broadband takes time but we're ready to go now so that's that's really why I'm here today that I'm asking free up some money get us some money and we'll we'll get to job we'll get started on the jobs well we've talked about taking jobs that we have slated for next year and trying to pull them into this year to get to jobs done and to get more people broadband okay is it going to be difficult yes it will be but we're committed to it I'm talking about so should I should I know that's that's fine I think we've got two stages one is the department's long-range plan to do a reverse auction on every county in the state and that is dependent on further federal funding there is no funding for that plan now there's some possibility we could find some present COVID money to go forward um but that money and it's been reconfirmed as recently as two days ago has to be spent and the project done but at least spent um I don't know who's going to go up the mountain and see if that last 50 feet of line is in but it has to be pretty much done by next January so if you've got some shovel ready projects that would be helpful to know if and then there's the big if some of us are pretty sure we have spent the 1.2 billion more than once there's a lot of need out there but maybe we could get you know a couple million bucks to do something with broadband um also I think we'll be looking at areas where schools have been particularly negatively impacted on their ability to do remote learning because some of us think there's a probably better than even chance that we'll be doing remote learning again um for at least a number of weeks um we may all be proven wrong but um no one quite knows what the course of this virus is going to be so if you can do that that would be helpful. Senator McDonald is the witness uh saying that if Watesfield Cable was received funds that all the money that was received would go towards a minimum of 100 to 100 broadband and would not be used for any other purposes. Yes so in terms of this if if we get the funding as it's written up in this it would go straight to the jobs and it would go to fiber jobs and getting fiber out to our end user customers. Um Madam Chair and again I don't know if the witness can answer this but we've been it's been suggested that there be a reverse auction to find out where money goes um how could we understand how a reverse auction works um my understanding is that you can bid basically zero um and how reverse it is not traditional how does a reverse auction work and how could you possibly bid to do 100 to 100 and be included as a winner in such an auction. So in in in terms of reverse auction I think the floor the starting price in this was the $4,240 and obviously it works as if a company says I think I can do that for $3,000 per location and then the bidding goes on and obviously when you start getting to the lower levels the companies that are doing the bidding and that want to really mean the project they will have to supply a lot of their own capital. So that's that's generally how they go so there there is input and financial backing of the companies either through their current capital or through additional loans. Now there is a second part of this and and that's one thing I haven't brought up is the ILEX have an options of an emergency broadband action plan high cost area program so to use our current universal service funding program to fund our networks in the rural ILEX areas and that would be a situation in which we would have to commit to building everyone to 25 greater than 25 over three or 100 over 100 and fiber to everyone that doesn't have the 25 over three today and and that's something that if the money were available now once again we wouldn't have to wait three months for the option to start in that instance so that is is an option that is in the in the plan and we're all for it we're all for giving the ILEX the options of doing the the option or the getting the high cost area program. Thank you ma'am chair so the final question I would be what if you are like the witness who is would take every penny and put it into 100 to 100 and someone else goes into the same auction and says well I'll we'll do it for much less money but it'll be 25 three how do we arrange an auction that has people bid against for the 100 100 and not allow allow others to get the money because they promise to do cheap stuff. Right now I believe the standard for the auction as it's been presented to us is to bring everybody who has less than 25 three up to at least 25 three that would be I assume a negotiation between us and the department it also would probably limit the number of homes we may be able to service if it costs more per home. Well it puts Watesfield Cable out of the competition is there. Well and again yeah my question is it looked like it was divided up by county and I don't think any of these small companies could bid on an entire county so you know it may be dividing it up into different service areas. We've got a long way to go right now we don't have any money so it's a good time to talk. Sandra Pearson. I just wanted to ask Roger a clarifying question and we're all still getting up to speed with the plan as it's been presented but you seem to suggest that telecoms like yours were somehow excluded and could you just say more about that so that I fully understand it please. So in some of the suggestions there was talking there wasn't really a specific mention of Ilex or the smaller Ilex and and while we may have been interweaved throughout there was there was just really not anything that said oh this is what the Ilex are doing and so that's really how it's coming about it and that we realize that we can do a lot and we want to be part of it so I think it was just the way it was written it wasn't a slide it was an overall plan and I'm saying that we want to be heard. That's fair. Okay other questions Senator Ballant I don't have you on my screen now I've got something else on my screen so if you want to you're going to have to holler if you want to ask a question okay somehow you seem to be the one that's moved to the further screen okay I'm going to move on to Tim Wilkerson to his new England cable and telecommunications and good afternoon new madam chair can you hear me yep excellent vlog and clear thank you so once again good afternoon to you steam members of the committee my name is Tim Wilkerson I am president of the new england cable and telecommunications association or NECTA we're a regional association representing private broadband and cable companies in five new england states in vermont we represent charter communications comcast and weights field tele um weights field in champlain valley telecom thank you for the opportunity to testify on potential broadband expansion in vermont I've spoken to several of you in the past about our members commitment to the state and ways we can again partner with vermont policymakers to expand broadband products and services to your residents our commitment to vermont is long-standing and growing today our companies provide high-speed broadband to 155,000 homes and businesses in vermont through approximately 9,000 miles of fiber these previous investments in state-of-the-art networks have prepared our members to absorb the increased and longer periods of peak internet internet demand during the pandemic the reality of our networks in vermont can be viewed in real and nearly a real time with the recent launch of a state-by-state dashboard by ncta the internet and television association I provided you a link to that dashboard in footnote one of my testimony that dashboard reveals that in vermont our customers downstream usage has increased by 19 and upstream usage has increased by 40 since march 1st despite these surges in demand our customers have not experienced speed reductions or connectivity outages and there's a clear reason why these networks are so reliable our members forecast their investments 18 to 24 months in advance to anticipate and exceed future customer use of broadband these are world-class fiber-rich high-speed broadband networks what speeds madam chair i don't understand what world-class fiber of me senate there's these are terms wilkinson can you tell us what speeds you're talking to me um the height and the top speeds that we provide residential customers throughout vermont are the same that they would get in boston dc or wherever our companies serve are one gig residential service that that in terms of the of us who are still barefoot what does that mean in terms of up and down so ups load speeds it's one gigabit so well beyond the 100 by 100 which has been a point of discussion in many past um past hearings depending on what type of product runs to your house or to your business the floor is at least 35 up speed up to a gigabit speed upload speeds so does that meet the 100 100 standard oftentimes it surpasses it does it meet it no our customers have our companies have tiered pricing for their cusp for their customers they can exceed that price they can fall below that price depends on their of the four billion which are the product that they would like to i think what because senator mcdonald is asking i understand i you know i can get more or less tv channels depending on how much i want to pay but the ability to feed me all 22 000 of them is there how is it is the product there that if i decided i got four people at home working on a computer and it's not holding i could up my level of service and the speed your system would have the speed to deliver it absolutely yes and i would say from a baseline before that are the architecture of our companies prepare for 18 devices in the home 18 which exceeds which most people are using at one time so as i said before about the investments our companies make our 18 to 24 months in advance purposefully for this very reason they've been in this business for a long time and they've seen the way the usage patterns have taken place and they are anticipating and exceeding what they think each home and business will need you absolutely your typical levels of service will more than exceed everything that you need as a user if for some reason that you number numbers it was a teacher he needs numbers so yeah so as i understand um the person and i mean that and i mean that respectfully um i would let the next witness um john suddish from comcast speak to precisely those tiers fair enough thank you but i think my testimony is going to provide a pre robust and comprehensive approach to speed 100 by 100 and capability the last time i got a speeding ticket i it was not for driving robustly it was for exceeding a certain speed thank you correct networks are about robustness that a pro allows speed absolutely senator okay all right all right um may any and all right that's the end of your testimony no i have okay the floor is still yours thank you so much so given these facts about our our networks our members are well suited to once again partner with the state of vermont this time when when federal stimulus money becomes available for broadband expansion specifically it appears that that in within dps's plan both the connectivity initiative and the line extension programs are the best place for our for partnerships with our members but before speaking about future partnerships i'd like to highlight past and ongoing public private partnerships that have resulted in um in expanded broadband starting under governor shumlin vermont awarded connectivity initiative grants as you're aware of reaching hundreds of unserved residences and multiple municipalities and our members participated in a number of those successful partnerships the connectivity initiative successes served as a model for neighboring massachusetts and new hampshire who have entered into similar public private partnerships with a range of providers bringing broadband to unserved areas the massachusetts experience is quite instructive for the past five years of the 53 communities completely unserved are only partially served by a provider high-speed broadband has been greatly expanded through an open competitive technology neutral bidding process today only one of those 53 communities do not have a provider 17 17 communities have built out to approximately 96 of their premises and construction continues in the remaining 35 communities of the 52 municipalities massachusetts municipalities i just mentioned nearly half are served by a nectar member offering up to one gigabit residential service like their vermont customers as this committee your counterparts in the house and the administration officials determine the details of what programs utilize federal stimulus money i strongly urge you to focus your energy and funding toward the connectivity initiative and the line extension program the massachusetts experience shows that these types of programs are scalable and have a proven record of successful successful partnerships the connectivity initiative and the line extension program will yield the most broadband expansion in the coming months because they support the most shovel-ready proposals before you as the past shows our members are willing and ready to enter into partnerships with the state and assume the ongoing operation maintenance and future upgrades that stem from the build out under either construction program however we strongly suggest that both programs be structured in ways that invite proven providers like our members to participate as i said previously there's been much discussion about 100 by 100 symmetry and also fiber to the premises as either preferred or required elements of potential partners focusing on either on solely on either misconstrues providers current technological capabilities no state in the country requires 100 by 100 speed and broadband offerings in these types of partnerships because it is a product not a capability it is unnecessary to require such a prescriptive speed symmetry and by framing discussion simply as either 100 by 100 or 25 by 3 establishes a false policy choice for instance today as i just outlined the senator mcdonald's questions our members have numerous speed offerings for customers exceeding 25 by 3 and up to 101 gigabit of residential service this reality undermines the need or preference for 100 by 100 or a compliance or a complete fiber to the home solution again evidence of our future proof investments in our products and services lies in that ncta dashboard that i mentioned at the beginning of my testimony vermont our vermont customers have easily transitioned to distance learning telecommuting and health telehealth scenarios why because of our speed offerings and the investments we made in the past these future proof networks will be the platform upon which new and even future farther future farther future looking technologies will be unveiled in the near term soon you'll be hearing about 10g technology and i'll and i'll it's important to stress this is not 5g technology which is a wireless offering which you're all very familiar with 10g will be symmetrical 10 gigabit um service that will run over our existing networks um that are the hybrid fiber coaxial cable supported by what's known as doxus 3.1 technology all of that infrastructure is already in our current physical plants and there will be very limited need to upgrade that existing technology to be able to provide this these speeds symmetrical speeds to our existing and future customers in closing our ongoing commitment to the to growth in vermont is best highlighted by comcasts announcement just last week of new construction to 430 homes and businesses this announcement is beyond any existing franchise agreements that they have have in place i suggest you that that type of of shovel ready job that is a example of what our members can do if these projects are structured in a way these programs are structured in a way that will bring us to the table and be a willing partner to expand like we have in the past like we have in Massachusetts like we have in new Hampshire and we're ready to do it ready to do in the near future in vermont thank you very much okay thank you i'm going to move along because we are running a little late um so if we have any really pressing questions now other than speed um i'm going to go on to john suit suit tick or suit itch well i'm not sure how it came in ellis island but it came out somewhat some some version of that uh my dad said it's but his brother pronounced it completely differently who knew uh anyway uh thank you for your time madam chair and through to the members of the committee um i i'm mindful of the time and i know it's been a long day week and session for all of you um and so i don't want to be terribly repetitive with um what tim just went through and he is an able representative of our industry but maybe just a quick roadmap and you can kind of tell me what to maybe focus on or sort of minimize or come back to um but briefly i just want to kind of touch on how our network is performing some of the work we're doing around specifically for the for the pandemic response um and speak to uh briefly to our products and services and our network capability and the importance of focusing on network capability when looking for further investment in partnership and then close with a couple of comments about uh the department's plan and we'll have much more substantial comments and specific comments on the plan that we'll be submitting and we're happy to share that with the committee as well so i i don't want to speak too quickly and i'm a quick talker by nature um so is that i guess brought me along if i'm going to windy on a particular section but uh if that sounds okay i'll get started okay that sounds fine um well first and foremost i want to i want to thank the administration and all policy makers um the the structures you put around uh essential and critical services in vermont has made the ability to keep our employees safe and keep our customers safe and still do the work we need to do very easy so we're really grateful for that um really smart and flexible guidance with keeping everybody's health in mind it's been it's been great um so uh wanted to get that up front uh touching base on our network um as tim referenced our networks are performing really well we you know they're designed to handle extreme usage and even with the unbelievable changes we've seen um and the rapidly changing culture of usage at home in times of when things peak um it's working um and that's the result of of billions of dollars in upgrades and we're doing thousands of speed tests and diagnostics every day to ensure uh performance and uh our network is designed to be future proof and will always be or we're committed to that to that capital investment and all networks you know regardless of the architecture of them need to be upgraded and maintained to stay future proof regardless of how they connect also with what line and we our commitment is that we will always work to upgrade and enhance to exceed the needs of vermont and everywhere we serve um you know just a note about architecture you know networks are far more than fiber optics or what the lines are to make the connections there's software there's electronics and other factors that make these networks go for us we're really committed in products the the wi-fi the mountains the x-fi the mesh products the operating system equipment all of which is state-of-the-art to make sure the in-home experience matches the quality of the signals coming into the home that's really important and our our technologists are working through our cable labs on this 10g uh technology uh to to utilize our existing fiber networks and coax networks to provide you know really you know world-class speeds uh so there's a lot here and there's more coming um touching on investing in vermont um you know we've been a ready willing and capable partner uh for for several years now since we entered uh here in 2007 uh in record our investment and expansion and growth and innovation we're an employer of choice and and proud of the work that all of our colleagues are doing in this incredibly difficult period so um i think for some reason there's a little bit of surprise about our announcement uh last week about additional miles but you know the reality is over the last 10 years we've built about seven seventy miles of new broadband plant to broadband and other services and almost 70 miles into it two four thousand nineteen alone and uh as far as what the the speed options go we we offer broad badge options up to one gig we uh design our system to focus on download speeds because that's what we see consumers want we don't sell a symmetric we do we do sell a symmetrical product of two gig that we're rolling out piece by piece across the country including some areas of vermont right now we offer a lot of commercial broadband options for small businesses to large institutions like hospitals or government um and our network's able to support all of that um so uh and we've also you know the first place Comcast ever participated in a public private partnership anywhere on broadband build out was here and that was kind of the predecessor to the connectivity fund model and it's a model we've uh we've been a evangelist in other states as a really smart project based achievable model for for government and private business working together on on broadband expansions and then finally an issue we we find really important and doesn't get talked about a whole lot uh is although there was a lot of talk about earlier this year with the principals and the uh superintendents and that's broadband adoption and that's the idea of somebody's on a network but not able to use it for a host of reasons from economic to cultural or or access to a computing device we work really hard on that we've had a program for nine years called internet essentials which is a low-cost low-income broadband program we've expanded it to seniors and veterans um throughout the years but it's been really key during this time to making sure that people can get connected to a network um let me uh talk a little bit about our recent announcements and the the issue of our cpg and our requirements around the cpg were raised and i think it's important to touch on that um so you know obviously as you know probably all better than i cpgs are you know the documents that negotiate the conditions between service providers in the state and it creates certainty for the company to operate creates certainty for the state to know what to expect uh for performance um you know for us cpgs have always been about uh maintaining the flexibility to invest and grow and run our business in a very dynamic and competitive technology minded environment um and we've got a lot of experience doing what we do we're proven we're viable and uh you know for us you know we're pretty clear during a cpg negotiation about what we'd like the conditions to be it's not always fun but it always you know ends up in a good spot um so for us the terms really are just a set of floor and a set of basic expectations and especially when it comes to build out requirements you know the miles it's it's a floor and we've exceeded every single commitment we've ever made in a document a cpg document to the state because our business as usual is to grow and invest and exceed expectations so to our recent announcement that our announcement uh to seven towns uh and four hundred thirty new records had nothing to do with our cpg requirements um that was uh an error uh i forget who mentioned it but that that's who mentioned it uh those miles will not count toward our cpg requirements they are business as usual additional miles and um we did get the same letter from commissioner tyranny about responding to the current christ but crisis uh but the reality was that we were already doing a lot of things making permits to keep consumers connected to phone internet services opening up thousands of hot spots throughout the state making our low broadband low-income broadband program uh it's uh internet essentials free for two months uh and we donated sixty thousand dollars with the chrome box chrome books to vermont students who needed a computing device so in the case of this announcement you know we were mindful of the need to really move projects forward as fast as possible i mean we're we're seeing what you're seeing and it's it's obviously a critical time to do as much as possible but it didn't have anything to do with the cpg or or reaction to some sort of a bully problem so um maybe we can uh move on now to the broadband plan and just some of the things that we're seeing in and and we will have more substantial comments down the line um there's two elements in the plan that we really endorse and and we recognize that dps has just put a ton of time into it and we know it's a very dynamic time for them to be doing the work that they're doing and so we're mindful of it and we're doing our best to to stay in touch with them and make sure that we're trying to meet priorities and expectations um but the the two plans we endorse is to adopt the federal definition of 25 three uh as a baseline for partnership and that's not to say that that is going to be ideal for every single use in our house but it is a common definition throughout the industry it's accepted in all the states and you know and it it makes it it it makes it it makes the proposal of the plan more inclusive rather than exclusive and uh we think that was a smart approach in this emergency plan and and secondly and and we're biased because you know it's the product of a lot of work we've done with the state over the years is use the connectivity initiative to disperse any potential funds um the connectivity initiative is really a remarkable entity if you think about it um CUDs are comfortable working with the contacts is comfortable with the connectivity initiative and everybody in between it's been a great arbiter it's a great way to workshop projects and really understand the engineering and technical needs to sort of attack various pieces of that so um wanted to make sure that we we set up front that those are two really important pieces um so we're already in willing partner on that we'll continue to do work and and we're looking at different projects that we may be able to push along like as with the announcement we made as well but you know we're we're very much interested in working with the with the connectivity initiative as well so uh I guess you know I've really kind of gone on pretty windy here and I do have some some more sort of even specific points to the uh this point but I I want to be responsive to any questions too and not take too much time so let me stop there and see what folks and just to be clear because I see senator mcdonald you're asking I think a couple things that we don't mandate 100 100 that we go with the 25 3 which is right now the national standard I I would say it's a it's a floor definition for what yeah okay let me maybe I should probably take a minute on 100 100 sometimes I'm glad senator mcdonald can't reach through the screen but here we go the mute button he's unmuted right now oh that man I I uh I'm very confident he can always get a point across muted or unmuted so uh the right notes and hands them up to the screen so look when we look at 100 100 that is to us that is a market offering that is not a statement about network capability although you have to have a good network to be able to offer 100 100 right it's not a standard in our view I mean you know if I look at the history you know when fiber to the promises became a broadband architecture uh you know once upon a time the ability to sort of offer symmetrical speeds was a way to differentiate yourself inferential differentiate your service offerings from other providers but it you know with the evolution of technology that we use and other providers use you know that that sort of gap between fiber the princesses and what we're doing is really basically closed um and so I guess I I think it is it is good public policy to push for the the best for your residents but I I guess I caution against using sort of specific market offerings like 100 over 100 or even our market offerings and really focus on network capability and so in our case our network is fully capable of offering high-grade broadbands I mean we're offering 1000 down which makes you know a ton of broadband available in the home it's just the way we when we sort of talk to our consumers and understand what they need and evaluate the the engineering and architecture that's what we want and so it's it's we're not trying to be I want to be clear we're not being just meant the goal behind 100 100 in our view is trying to say we want good high quality networks providing broadband in our state but mandating a service level I think is it gets a little prescriptive okay I've got Sandra McDonald and Senator Pearson Madam Chair I um we're not mandating a service level um and if Comcast or any other private company wants to invest their own money in 25 three um this is this is their prerogative um if you're going to invest the taxpayers money that has the taxpayers should be able to decide what the limit is that they're willing to put taxpayers money into um the I'm I've asked the witnesses to be as specific and to give numbers as possible and the only numbers the only number we got in the testimony was um tons of time and that's time is not measured in tons so um I'm I know I'm being picky here but how do we as the as the folks who have taxpayer funded money set a standard for our network and let the capitalists use their own money if they want to do a lower standard that's the question okay all right senator I'm going to move this along because this is really more committee discussion um about standards and possibilities okay senator Pearson did you have a question yeah and it's similar and john I hope you can answer um I don't I can hear what you're saying about mandating 100 100 and I frankly agree with center mcdonald that when we're talking about public investments it is important that we uh build for tomorrow and I'll just tell you I live in burlington uh I'm you know I have fiber to the home and I remember a business friend of mine a video editor who worked on church street which was served by Comcast and could not get Burlington telecom for the longest time and he would do all of his video work and put it on an iPad and bring it home and upload it to hollywood in his case in 15 minutes rather than uh have his computer churning for 12 hours to upload the same kind of file so the upload when I think about it I think about the upload speed and it's the symmetrical technology that is not to say that everyone needs to pay for that service but if we're not giving business the opportunity to sign on to something if they need it that is more robust than then uh as I understand what coax can provide then we have uh not really expanded the business opportunity that comes with robust uh dual direction broadband so my question is uh is coax capable of symmetrical and or this is where we've had this discussion this committee before but remind us um if you want symmetrical is there a limit to how fast coax can have upload speeds and and is is asking for symmetrical akin to asking for either uh robust fixed wireless or or fiber to the home well I mean look it's it's the way our network is engineered it's to focus on download speeds and provide sufficient upload speeds but we also have commercial grade products that are probably sometimes more appropriate for those things but we you know our engineers take market feedback and we you know serve all sorts of different providers I can't speak to your friend particularly and I don't know when exactly this was that you're referring to but it you know it's in the last two years we're offering a gig down and I look at the upload speeds it's not a hundred but it's significant you know and you know we have people doing substantial work from home CAD designers video users other folks that you know are using our gig product and using it happily and well I mean it's the delta on the upload speed is is not that big at this point for that product in particular but our network is certainly capable of it but the is your network capable of it everywhere I mean this is where the technology of of clearly it's available where you offer fiber is it well you're are you asking I need to I'm sorry but I just I'm trying to understand are you just trying to make me say all out that our market I mean we're not offering symmetrical broadband we do have a two gig symmetrical program program that's available within a certain distance from our core fiber network at this point it's not ubiquitous what it's there and it's robust but across the entire network is you know a gig down which as you know is 10 times 100 and and not 100 up but I apologize I don't know the number off the top of my head but it's it's like 50 you know in our estimation that is the product that works well for a lot of people and our network is fully capable it's handling everything that everybody's throwing at us now and as Tim referenced and I got into it too is that you know within a year or two or three we're going to have a substantial upgrade of the operating system electronics to be able to do 10 gig symmetrical so I guess my point is that I hear you know you don't want to throw tax money itself that's not going to work except that in our case you know when we have taken partnership money and it's not significant but it's existed you know the technology works and it's serving Vermont with high-grade state-of-the-art broadband it's not a symmetrical product but I don't but again cement symmetrical is a product and if people need more you know services we've got a range of things we've been doing but it's time we continue to upgrade the technology I'll finish quickly ma'am chair and I'm not trying to be picky I'm trying to you please understand there I'm I'm sharing my ignorance so you said that you're you can offer gigabyte down and call it 50 megs up correct is that what you just said that's your standard well that's what that's our that is our gig offer we have a range of offers from 25 three is every Comcast customer in Vermont able to get that service or that's every every customer in Vermont is able to get a gig the gig or what we call our gig residential product okay so coaxial can give that kind of upload speed yeah and it has for nearly two years okay thank you okay and one of the questions we may be faced with is we're going to have a finite amount of money and how do we choose to spend it we do we spend it to get the best possible service which may be a lot more service than some people need or want or can afford we've been talking about kids who have no connectivity who can't do their schoolwork and if we're going to use COVID money it's going to have to get tied somehow to that so that's this is going to be an ongoing discussion but not all public money is the same I don't think we're coming up with 86 million dollars worth of state money if we do small connectivity projects we may be able to require that we may make it a norm but the federal money is going to come with attachments always does and I think we can have this argument when we have money to spend right now as far as I know we don't have very much that's true you know as we as we've seen in other states and and what's different about the connectivity initiative is is you know the financing of it right it's you know when I look at Massachusetts the success there has been related to bond money they've bonded liquidity this is a putting that kind of gas in the tank and making it go and it's um and it's leveraged a lot of private investment it's leveraged a lot of unique partners beyond the cable companies to solve these solutions so I guess I guess I want to close by saying you know the connectivity initiative when you get when you have what you have or get it it's going to have to do things in sort of kind of microburst anyway because when you get to less mile projects the successful ones are sort of chunked off thought through and kind of addressed from what's got obviously a very dynamic topography and there's and just sometimes the way these last mile projects have to work is you have to kind of define them relatively small it's a lot of work and a lot of credit goes to the the connectivity folks and the company is working together to work out these solutions so great place to get it done if I heard two asks from you one was the don't mandate 100 100 everywhere and the second was and I'm not sure if we got money so if we got the 86 million dollars you would like that to go through the connectivity fund process rather than through the reverse option process you know well I haven't to be fair we haven't really dived too deeply into the reverse auction process we're we're just recognizing the success okay of the initiative it's worked and I think it bears you know noting every by regardless of your structure and background has gone and worked with the connectivity initiative okay I think it's just an endorsement of the structure all right okay Jeff Austin thank you thank you thank you uh thank you chair Cummings and the members of committee uh for the record Jeff Austin from Consolidate Communications it's nice to see you all again so I was kind of looking at my notes and trying to figure out where to go I agree with a lot of what John just said you know definitely props to the connectivity initiative and the Department of Public Service you know we definitely have some some areas where we agree on a lot of things and there's a lot of parallels certainly agree with a lot of what um what Roger said so I'm just going to go through a couple things here talk about some of the I know we've visited probably some of this previously but I'll go real quick so ultimately the emergency broadband action plan in general certainly Consolidated supports it it relies on 300 million dollars or so depending on how the money's going to come in so if there's money then that's great and certainly Consolidated would want to be part of that so we're going to file more comments on that on by May 26 which is a deadline but certainly in general it's a pretty good roadmap to start with to get those 70,000 locations in Vermont I don't qualify for 25-3 something that Roger said that I think is worth kind of going a little bit more into detail brought the ILX and Consolidated as a designated carrier of last resort in our territory we take seriously and with great responsibility and expense the obligation of being the carrier of last resort and with these fiber of the prime conversations and 100 makes symmetrical and and the emergency broadband plan it's absolutely our intention to be part of the solution you know for these future builds you know I use the word previously and in the previous sentence because we don't just want to be and can't just be the carrier of last resort we want to be both and believe Consolidated's participation in both creates the best possibilities for balance for Vermont and we'll work hard to continue those conversations I believe Madam Chair you and the committee know that we've been working with the Department of Public Service electric companies CUDs towns there's a lot of conversations going on here at Vermont so we're involved in those conversations you know something that we might have talked about as it relates to expansion of network we have a we have a large network in Vermont we have believe who have the largest network in Vermont the most fiber with infrastructure to virtually every location in our 7400 square mile footprint in Vermont we cover very large portion in Vermont there's about 9600 square miles in Vermont total so we have a really good a pretty good amount of that 3700 miles of existing fiber one of the things I just want to kind of point out is we have over a thousand fiber fed remote terminals today many of these go deep into rural areas so the management financial technical expertise we believe bring a lot to the table and encourage anyone looking to expand broadband to engage us in these discussions we're reaching out to folks again I listed you know the group the CUDs the electric companies to have these conversations because if we're looking at line extensions you know and potentially line extensions for maybe fiber of the prem you know and if there is money in that 300 million dollars and consolidators looking to participate we would be looking for a fiber of the prem solution as it relates to how we would spend those dollars definitely shovel ready projects so like I mentioned we're the closest carriers are all of these locations today we have a large redundant you know John talked about networks now we have a huge network in Vermont and that's extremely important Roger talked about networks filling money that comes in can be put into practice can be put into play and doesn't need to be put into developing whatever kind of business model so so there like I said there's definitely some synergies there and we're certainly looking forward to we've had public-private partnerships we're looking forward to ARDOF and working on our strategy for ARDOF and the department's broadband plan so there's a lot of stuff going on and certainly consolidators looking into all of that we built fiber of the prem you know this is not a new thing for consolidated New York had a broadband project they had about 500 million dollars they spent we built about 17,000 locations with fiber and in New York building fiber and Chesterfield and Hampshire that's done five other towns we're working on that calf builds one just so you know and I think you guys know this is a continuation right we're always building in Vermont on Monday we're going to open a location in Barnett that was part of a Vermont connectivity grant and a partnership with the town the town's giving us some money the state's giving us some money really good collaboration so that's that was due on 7-1 we've worked really hard to expedite it because of obviously the coronavirus so we're going to be opening that site up on Monday I've already let the folks know Barnett so we're going to be looking for orders and this is going to be getting folks internet that have never had access to wireline internet previously so that's that's a great story we've actually opened up eight projects in the last two months for new locations around the state so everywhere in the state we obviously have activity going on before Sandra McDonald asked what's the speed oh well what we're deploying today um as it relates to the grant and the grant requirements um we're building out vdsl very high bitrate dsl the highest speed that people can qualify um is up to 100 meg on the download 40 meg on the upload but it's distance sensitive so our requirement as part of the grant is to make sure that everybody in the grant locations qualifies for 10 down one up so that's the qualification when we got the grant I know that yep 10 now those numbers have changed um because now it's 25 three you know based on the information about act 79 but if we go to the emergency broadband plan and there's the federal money or federal money available 300 million dollars or whatever the number is um our strategy to get to the 25 three would be fiber to the prem and it would be 100 meg symmetrical you know in that area just i'm sorry madam chair can he just repeat that last um can you repeat sense sure yep if so if there's money in the emergency broadband plan so if we do get let's say the 300 million dollars that we had talked that's kind of in the plan um with one of the uh with one of the funding then consolidated if we're going to be participating that would be a fiber of the premise to look into it thank you yep you're welcome okay thank you and i'm madam chair can i just say two quick other things yeah these are really quick it's gonna it's 70 000 locations it's a four-year bill it's a lot of work uh roger mentioned this it's going to take a lot of resources um it's going to you know we live in vermont right so there's the build season is not that long so that i think should be a tight schedule that's a really tight schedule but we've got you know shovel ready projects um and affordability john mentioned that they have a program related to affordability i think that's important we have and they have a lot of tiers of service so people can choose what they want we have a lot of tiers from service starting at 1999 a month so if we're if there's building out of broadband and it's fiber and the lowest tier is going to be 65 dollars a month i think that's just going to create more conversations um because the affordability is going to be a real problem for a lot of our monitors so that's one of the balances okay okay thank you you're welcome thank you i appreciate it okay sender brock you have a question just just a very quick question uh to uh to jeff and it goes to what we're going to talk about later and talk about briefly uh if you when you go fiber to the premises with consolidated you have i assume a network interface on the exterior of the premises actually uh senator if you guys can see this uh this is an this is an interior optical network termination device and this is what we usually is we do put fiber the prime informant we have several locations where we have fiber we actually prefer these um and this is actually an interior optical network termination device that needs to have commercial power uh to work yep if that uh power to that device fails do you know about it and can you monitor it i believe we can monitor i don't believe at this point that we have this big large monitoring system together to see if they're working or not um but we know when things go down on but what i really tried to find out is as we've heard from detail when their network interface device goes down although they don't necessarily look at it on an item by item basis they do have the ability to recognize that a group of those devices are not working and as a result there's no power to them through through your system and then at that point if that's the case who's responsible for repairing it well it depends um if we saw a lot of these down at the same location that could be a problem that could be a fiber cut you know so we'd obviously have to go and research just like we do today actually with a remote terminal if a remote terminal goes down we have to go find out why that remote terminal went down is it commercial power or was there a fiber cut our accident that took a pull out could be a few different things well under our reporting standard uh what we've said is a report what's reportable is 25 devices or more down for half an hour would you be able to monitor and report that to the e911 board yeah i believe we could yeah okay i do thank you very much and senator debrock just on that point i know there are some questions related to the the e911 reporting the outage reporting rule that you referenced um one of the things that's interesting is with the federal with a larger well the national carriers there was some discussion about the the FCC reporting if they have current FCC reporting requirements then that the state requirement would just default to the FCC requirements currently i just i guess maybe a clarification if you have it currently consolidated has FCC requirements but we also report today on the state requirements of 25 customers for 30 or more so just for parity purposes is is there the ability for now consolidated to report or just on our FCC standards and not the 25 yes okay well well is that in the event uh at least with this amendment in 301 in the event that you have the capability of doing that we ask you to voluntarily do that we don't make it mandatory if you have FCC reporting that's fair thank you sir okay